The invention relates to a conveyor belt for a system in which the conveyor belt is spirally wound around a driven drum, said conveyor belt comprising a repeating interconnected arrangement of:                longitudinally spaced rods each extending in a lateral direction defining first and second ends between a central conveying section; and        connective links connecting the rods together, each connective link comprising legs extending in a longitudinal direction from a lateral cross-member at a closed first end and to an open second end, and defining laterally aligned first apertures on each of said legs at said closed end for reception of a rod, and laterally aligned second apertures at said open end for reception of a rod, whereby the first apertures of a first link are aligned with the second apertures of a second link for reception of a rod thereinto; wherein said rods are at least fused to said second apertures on the outside edge of the belt.        
Such a belt is commonly used in cooling or heating towers, wherein the conveyor belt is spirally wound around a driven drum. This enables to have a large length of conveyor belt in a relatively small room. This has advantages when products have to be cooled or heated.
Due to this heating and cooling the conveyor belt is subjected to high stresses, which will eventually damage the conveyor belt. In conventional conveyor belts, the rods are welded to the links and this heating and cooling will eventually result in rupture of the weld.
Furthermore, as the belt is driven by the drum a slight speed difference between the driven drum and the conveyor belt will occur resulting in wear of the conveyor belt side as a result of the friction between the conveyor belt and the drum. Due to this wear, the weld between the rod and link on the outside of the conveyor belt will diminish and finally the connection between the rod and the link will disappear.
When the rod and the link are not connected anymore by the weld, the conveyor belt could buckle, which is also referred to as tenting. This could then result in jamming of the conveyor belt causing damage to the complete system.